I just got home...
...from work. When I got here there was a message for me to call my supervisor. I did and she wants me to work tonight and tomorrow night. I said that I would. I've already worked 3 twelve hour shifts (in nurse-speak, 12 hours means anything from 13 to 19 hours) so sometime tonight I'll go into overtime and tomorrow night will be ALL overtime. I haven't worked overtime since before I had the stroke.
Luckily, I enjoy my job. The past two shifts that I worked were on an orthopedic unit so just about everyone there was in a LOT of pain. I basically spent the night pushing narcotics on people. One of my patients was a bit of a challenge but for some reason, he and his family liked me. Well, they acted like they did anyway. But they were talking about the other nurses so much (in a bad way) that I started to worry what they would be saying about me later on.
There was this one pretty interesting guy...he had his sister and his mother there to wait on him hand and foot. I learned a lot watching them and started to wonder if I'm not doing the same thing with my son. I don't think I am but who knows. I just hope that I'm not as bad as that guy's family was. He refuses male nurses and it's my opinion that he did so because he thinks that he can intimidate and manipulate women and from what I witnessed, he's probably right.
Anyway, at one point in the evening, I was standing outside of his room charting on him when the charge nurse came over to talk to me about something. While we were chatting, the sister came out of the room and said, "He doesn't like his sister watching him do certain things." I assumed that he was going to the bathroom and then I walked away.
I didn't know it but for some reason, the charge nurse walked into the room when I walked away. A few minutes later she came up to me and told me that the guy was smoking in the room. I was stunned. I would never have guessed that he'd doing that. The room didn't smell like tobacco at all.
When I went back into the room, I said, "If you wanted a cigarette you should have told me, I would have told you how to do it without having anyone jump on you for it." He said, "Well, no one ever noticed before." I asked him if he'd smoked before in the room before and he said, "Yeah...then I spray Febreeze and no one notices."
I told him that he should do a commercial for the stuff...hold up a can and say, "Works so well you're nurse won't even know you've been smoking in your room!" They do allow people to smoke, but not in the hospital. The charge nurse freaked and she kept asking, "Do I smell like smoke? I HATE that!"
She wouldn't have enjoyed nursing when I started. Thirty years ago the patients all smoked in their rooms and the nurses smoked at the nurses station. Things were a LOT different back then. Of course, they couldn't smoke if they had oxygen on and this guy did. I'm just glad he didn't blow us all up.
When the doctors list a patient's illnesses, they list all of them. They include whatever they're aware of, whether those things are what the patient is in the hospital for or not. When a patient smokes, the doctors list it as an illness. They call it "tobacco abuse". They even treat it...they order nicotine patches for all smokers.
That's kind of useless because a patch won't work at ALL if the person WANTS a cigarette. Most of these people don't WANT to quit, they just have to be in the hospital for one thing or another. So, the patch helps no one except the people who make the stupid things.
I had another patient who smoked and she did it the right way, she left the unit and went outside looking for a place to smoke. But, she did something else that wasn't too bright...she complained of pain and put on a little show for me. I don't mind giving out pain meds, I don't even mind if I don't believe that they're in pain. If the doctor ordered it and the patient asks for it, I give it. You don't need to put on a show for me...that's actually insulting.
Her pain came and went. It came every 4 hours on the dot. Then, it went away until she had her smoke and got back into the room. That is, unless she called from downstairs and said that she was in respiratory distress. She did that yesterday before I got her. After she left the unit for the first time on my shift, another nurse said, "Now watch and see if she calls us to say that she can't breathe."
That's not what she did for me. For me she just said that while she was down there smoking, she coughed and felt a "pop" in her back that was so painful that she had to put her cigarette out. She kept that crap up all night. In the past 10 or 15 years, people have turned into drug addicts. Even little old ladies who love their darvocet are multiplying. I don't understand why...but it's certainly true.
In nursing school they teach you that the definition of pain is, "Whatever the patient says it is." Some nurses forget that and act as though the pain meds are coming out of their own personal stash. They won't bend an inch. If the order is for every 4 hours, they make the patient wait until the entire 4 hours are up. You'd be lucky to get the medicine within 5. I don't mind at all, as I said, if the doctor ordered it, I'll happily give it to you. We have an hour leeway and don't really HAVE to make them wait so long. I don't understand the nurses who make people wait. They wouldn't make them wait if they had asked for Maalox.
It's sort of interesting how all of the people who like drugs so much all do the same things. I guess they think that they're the only ones who ever thought of some of their tricks but that's not at all true. And, they're predictability is remarkable. They all say that they're allergic to all of the minor narotics. If I have a patient who is allergic to ultram, codeine, darvocet and Motrin, I pretty much know that I have a drug seeker on my hands.
When the nurse asks them to rate their pain between 1 and 10, they all have a ten. The woman that I was discussing did that. I asked her to rate her pain between 1 and 10 and she said, "It's definitely a ten." I said, "Well, a ten is pretty much like a woman in labor who is screaming out in agony." She responded, "It's all that I can do to keep from screaming out in pain." Part of me wanted to laugh in her face but that's not an option so I just got the medicine and gave it to her.
Oh well, such is life. I need to go to bed now since I have to get up and go back to work in 5 hours. I'll pop back in before I leave unless I oversleep!
See ya later!
Meg
...from work. When I got here there was a message for me to call my supervisor. I did and she wants me to work tonight and tomorrow night. I said that I would. I've already worked 3 twelve hour shifts (in nurse-speak, 12 hours means anything from 13 to 19 hours) so sometime tonight I'll go into overtime and tomorrow night will be ALL overtime. I haven't worked overtime since before I had the stroke.
Luckily, I enjoy my job. The past two shifts that I worked were on an orthopedic unit so just about everyone there was in a LOT of pain. I basically spent the night pushing narcotics on people. One of my patients was a bit of a challenge but for some reason, he and his family liked me. Well, they acted like they did anyway. But they were talking about the other nurses so much (in a bad way) that I started to worry what they would be saying about me later on.
There was this one pretty interesting guy...he had his sister and his mother there to wait on him hand and foot. I learned a lot watching them and started to wonder if I'm not doing the same thing with my son. I don't think I am but who knows. I just hope that I'm not as bad as that guy's family was. He refuses male nurses and it's my opinion that he did so because he thinks that he can intimidate and manipulate women and from what I witnessed, he's probably right.
Anyway, at one point in the evening, I was standing outside of his room charting on him when the charge nurse came over to talk to me about something. While we were chatting, the sister came out of the room and said, "He doesn't like his sister watching him do certain things." I assumed that he was going to the bathroom and then I walked away.
I didn't know it but for some reason, the charge nurse walked into the room when I walked away. A few minutes later she came up to me and told me that the guy was smoking in the room. I was stunned. I would never have guessed that he'd doing that. The room didn't smell like tobacco at all.
When I went back into the room, I said, "If you wanted a cigarette you should have told me, I would have told you how to do it without having anyone jump on you for it." He said, "Well, no one ever noticed before." I asked him if he'd smoked before in the room before and he said, "Yeah...then I spray Febreeze and no one notices."
I told him that he should do a commercial for the stuff...hold up a can and say, "Works so well you're nurse won't even know you've been smoking in your room!" They do allow people to smoke, but not in the hospital. The charge nurse freaked and she kept asking, "Do I smell like smoke? I HATE that!"
She wouldn't have enjoyed nursing when I started. Thirty years ago the patients all smoked in their rooms and the nurses smoked at the nurses station. Things were a LOT different back then. Of course, they couldn't smoke if they had oxygen on and this guy did. I'm just glad he didn't blow us all up.
When the doctors list a patient's illnesses, they list all of them. They include whatever they're aware of, whether those things are what the patient is in the hospital for or not. When a patient smokes, the doctors list it as an illness. They call it "tobacco abuse". They even treat it...they order nicotine patches for all smokers.
That's kind of useless because a patch won't work at ALL if the person WANTS a cigarette. Most of these people don't WANT to quit, they just have to be in the hospital for one thing or another. So, the patch helps no one except the people who make the stupid things.
I had another patient who smoked and she did it the right way, she left the unit and went outside looking for a place to smoke. But, she did something else that wasn't too bright...she complained of pain and put on a little show for me. I don't mind giving out pain meds, I don't even mind if I don't believe that they're in pain. If the doctor ordered it and the patient asks for it, I give it. You don't need to put on a show for me...that's actually insulting.
Her pain came and went. It came every 4 hours on the dot. Then, it went away until she had her smoke and got back into the room. That is, unless she called from downstairs and said that she was in respiratory distress. She did that yesterday before I got her. After she left the unit for the first time on my shift, another nurse said, "Now watch and see if she calls us to say that she can't breathe."
That's not what she did for me. For me she just said that while she was down there smoking, she coughed and felt a "pop" in her back that was so painful that she had to put her cigarette out. She kept that crap up all night. In the past 10 or 15 years, people have turned into drug addicts. Even little old ladies who love their darvocet are multiplying. I don't understand why...but it's certainly true.
In nursing school they teach you that the definition of pain is, "Whatever the patient says it is." Some nurses forget that and act as though the pain meds are coming out of their own personal stash. They won't bend an inch. If the order is for every 4 hours, they make the patient wait until the entire 4 hours are up. You'd be lucky to get the medicine within 5. I don't mind at all, as I said, if the doctor ordered it, I'll happily give it to you. We have an hour leeway and don't really HAVE to make them wait so long. I don't understand the nurses who make people wait. They wouldn't make them wait if they had asked for Maalox.
It's sort of interesting how all of the people who like drugs so much all do the same things. I guess they think that they're the only ones who ever thought of some of their tricks but that's not at all true. And, they're predictability is remarkable. They all say that they're allergic to all of the minor narotics. If I have a patient who is allergic to ultram, codeine, darvocet and Motrin, I pretty much know that I have a drug seeker on my hands.
When the nurse asks them to rate their pain between 1 and 10, they all have a ten. The woman that I was discussing did that. I asked her to rate her pain between 1 and 10 and she said, "It's definitely a ten." I said, "Well, a ten is pretty much like a woman in labor who is screaming out in agony." She responded, "It's all that I can do to keep from screaming out in pain." Part of me wanted to laugh in her face but that's not an option so I just got the medicine and gave it to her.
Oh well, such is life. I need to go to bed now since I have to get up and go back to work in 5 hours. I'll pop back in before I leave unless I oversleep!
See ya later!
Meg
posted by Meg Kelso | 7:36 AM
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